Pears & Paper Clips

AD: Becca?

{silence}

BL: Yes.

AD: Do you-- when you eat pears, do you burp?

{silence}

BL: No.

AD: Huh.

________________________________________________________

I asked Josh if he had a Facebook. I told him that I had scanned through Cindy & Shari & Sarah's friends and couldn't find him. He said that he had a Myspace but never checks it. "Nobody checks Myspace," I told him.

He said he would sign up, just for me.

I'm going to miss the mortgage company. Really, really miss these people.

What I won't miss is this: the styrofoam cups we use for coffee are the same styrofoam cups we use to hold our paperclips on our desks. I almost pick up and drink from the paper clip cup every five minutes or so--very weird. It's a totally avoidable problem and yet I've never done anything to solve it.

Toilet Seat Pregnancies & Other Myths Dispelled

Girls, you'll probably know exactly what I'm talking about--and guys, I'm not sure whether or not you've ever been privy to this knowledge... But in junior high, there was this rumor that you shouldn't sit on public toilets after you started puberty because you might...

get pregnant

From sitting on the toilet.
I mean, once you flesh this out, if you're at all an analytical teenage girl {*hand raised high*}, you're thinking to yourself, Okay, what's the likelihood that a man got into this restroom and sat here and that somehow.... But at the same time, the nagging fear is there at that age, mostly because at that age you really don't understand how bad things happen.

And let's face it, getting pregnant from a toilet seat is a pretty bad thing to wake up to.

I bring this up because today, what started out as a completely awkward texting conversation with one of my friends, turned into what I can only relate as something both wonderful and liberating. We were stumbling through two opposite opinions on something but the dialogue was real weird. It felt like the back and forth was strained by the weight of the mysterious unspoken misunderstandings between us.

Really, it felt like a conversation between a mime and a blind man.

We did end up pushing through and I finally got the opportunity to communicate clearly my perspective. What a relief! I feel now like we're better friends than ever, simply because I feel more understood.

But it got me thinking--how rare it is for people to be courageous and straightforward in their communication skills! I've said it so many times about men, in particular, that I always feel like I have to hold their hands and guide them through grown-up conversations.

Granted, there are very few men or women in the world, I imagine, who out themselves as often as I do when it comes to matters of the heart. I've always chalked my bluntness up to a lack of "shame." Because when you're ashamed or embarrassed of how you feel, you don't want anyone to know about it. But when if you own your own feelings, you can speak freely about them and put them on the table of public discourse without self-consciousness.

The thing is...if things get awkward between you and a friend--no matter how weird it might seem to talk things through, it's sooooo much wierder not to.

It turns out, girls don't get pregnant by sitting on toilet seats. That's just a myth.

But also, relationships don't fall apart because you talk things through. They fall apart because you don't.

Bursty

I don't know how to tell you this.

But...

I think that a spider bit my knee.
It's all puffy and swollen and there's a giant red burst-y thing on it that I want to get rid of real bad.

It's gross and nasty, so of course I needed to share it with you as soon as possible.

If I had my Blackberry already, I could take a picture of it.

Too bad, right.

I'm Going to Be A Mamaberry

It's true!
I am now the proud parent of an even clunkier phone!

O, darling Blackberry...
{ I'll need a name for the little poopsie that sounds less like one of Strawberry Shortcake's friends and more like "Happy the Metro"}

I've been waiting to be free from Crappy the Samsung since a few days after I received it in the mail, when I realized that "smooth and sleek keypad" was just a cover for Samsung saving money by getting rid of individualized button-ry.

Yes
I know that iPhones are the gadget to have.
And yes
I know that Blackberries are more for the funny-shoed businessman type.

Ne'ertheless, I am very excited to meet and hold Curve, the Titanium wonder phone.
So say whatever you will--
This new phone will bring me closer to God.
Just you wait.

Toothpastefordinner For Lunch

I may be easy to please, but I seriously just got the biggest thrill by scrolling down the August section of Toothpastefordinner.com .

Go ahead, do it.



The Pedant's funeral?
Pirahna-head syndrome?

Classic.

Just A Note About Memory...What Was I Saying?

Can anyone solve my memory loss problem?

I hate it.

I decided to write a blog about it and it's amazing that I even remembered what I was writing about by the time the page loaded.

It's that bad.

I can't remember names of things.
Dates of things.
Things I thought about telling people.
Questions I need to ask people.


I once told my boss that I was a terrible administrator because I had no date/time comprehension. I could be typing for five minutes or fifteen minutes or twenty minutes and it would all feel the same to me. The morning could pass and all of its events without any notice in my brain. If there was a 9AM meeting, I would just as likely think it was 9AM at 9AM as I would at 11:34AM. Time-sensitivity, I have you not.


But she pointed out that the thing that made me a great administrator was that I had realized my weaknesses and capitalized on my strengths to compensate. I had created an intricate system of post-it-noting that would remind me of important dates and times, and often times remind me to remind myself to look to see if there was anything important that I should be doing, thinking, moving around.


I can always remember, ironically, the lyrics to the old song that fits my predicament so hand-in-glovely:

Do you suffer from short-term memory loss?

I don't remember

Working / Laughing

I have a one-train mind.

The track is never the same, but whatever track I end up on...the train gets stuck real good. Today my mind felt like a wild mustang ranch with a broken fence. Horses everywhere. Chaos and excitement and swirling dust.

I think, at one point in the day, my heart was actually racing with a swiftness that quite caught me off guard and caused a small sort of fever.

All the while I sat nearly motionless at my desk inside a light grey cubicle under fluorescent lights, printing mortgage documents for people with awkward names that sound like feminine hygiene products or human innards. I spend half of my printing time listening to regional news of France in French and the other half of my time laughing quietly to myself about the names of the people on our loans.

Really? You named your daughter after a redwood tree?
Really? You named your son the equivalent of Todd Todderts?

People, I ask this genuinely--when it comes to naming your children, what are you thinking?

That's why Jack is such a good, strong name, for a boy.
And of course, for a girl--Asbestos.